My Life Of Failures

Ok lets try to outline the failures and under acheivments through my life and what finally led me here after 34 years.

I could add lots of positives, but we're talking about UNDER-acheiving. We want to focus on the under achievements and failures.

Birth:

Born to a neurotic mother at a very young age who had marital problems and panic disorder and likely ADHD. Never knew my dad.

Elementary school

-Poor report cards ("does not apply himself", "does not sit in seat", "easily distracted").
-Failed grade 2.
-Like girls more than the boys in the class. Much more. Other kids still thought girls were 'gross'.
-Became at odds with my best friend.
-Got a job being a paper delivery boy and over indulged in thing like pizza, chocolate milk, arcades. Other kids it was a treat, me it was normal.
-Had a very rough time collecting payments and managing who papers should be delivered to. (I was like 11 years old though but still).
-Always wanted something new.
-Got in much more fights than other kids. More violent.
-In Grade 6, almost got expelled from school due to a joke I made. The boys dared me to say a joke to this girl because she would always talk about her older brother beating us up. She told her mom the joke I made, her mom went nuts and raised hell and I got in huge hot water. Threats of lawyers and police and ended up with 2 parents removing their kids from school. While it was mostly the parents fighting and acting like children, it was that first huge impulse related 'big screw up' in my life with many more to come.

Junior High

-Poor report cards, but still passed.
-Like girls way more than other kids.
-Started a job at McDonalds. Worked there for 3 years. Lectured constantly. Was taken off cash duties and told to clean in lobby.
-Tried for football team and passed the try-outs, never showed up for practice.
-Got in more fights than other kids.

High School

-Liked girls a lot. More than other kids. Got very distracted by them. Was shy around them.
-Was into clothing and being popular.
-Still worked at McDonalds so had money to indulge on all sorts of things.
-Failed my written driving permit twice.
-Failed my driving test twice.
-Was told that I failed most of my courses at Grade 10.
-Mother argued and they somehow passed me.
-I didn't pay attention at all in class. I would draw commics, joke around, jump out of seat.
-Got in more fights with other kids.
-Got into petty criminal activity like shoplifting.
-Begin to smoke cigarettes.
-Got arrested several times for petty things like shoplifting and threats.
-Attended court dates.
-Got choked at the back of a police cruiser by an officer and was threatened to get 'a good beating by the lake'.
-Don't even remember school during these years I skipped so much.

After High school, before college:

-Lawyers threatened for copyright infringement with a cease and desist letter.
-Thought I would trade anime tapes like everyone else at that time. RCMP (FBI) confiscated tapes and VCR's. Happened to me yet no one else.
-Got involved in my first gf. A 3 year toxic relationship with a toxic girl who was clearly bad news. She cheated on me 2 months after we moved in together. I forgave her though. Stayed together for 3 years. Ended with police handcuffs and a court date. Judge threw out bogus case.
-Got into trying weed, more small criminal stuff.
-Some partying and clubbing.
-Disowned my mother and stopped talking to her (till this day).
-Took a computer tech certification, posted questions and answers online to 'brain dumps', lawyers contacted us with threats.
-Got a job as a computer tech at a call center. I came in on weekends and did great in training. I failed a written test by 2 questions and got 'walked out'. I was crying and couldn't believe it. Neither could the instructor or anyone else.

College

-After 'walk out' incident which was very hurtful to me, I enrolled into a Computer Programming course in at a community college in Ottawa during the tech boom.
-Failed enrollment test twice and finally got in.
-Did very poorely all throughout school.
-Studied literally 3 times longer than everyone else. (I asked all the time trust me I studied for 8 hours while others studied for 2).
-Other students would talk about their parents, and other 'cute' things. I would be talking about relationships, men and women, bf and gf's.
-My first co-op job and I had my first professional 'talking to' asking me to do better. Two seperate managers had to 'talk to me'. I felt (and still do) that I was doing great. They just didn't like how I 'fit in' or 'acted'.
-Finally graduated and it was the happiest day. My biggest accomplishment in life and sure enough, forgot the date of the graduation ceremony.
-During this time was dating a lot of girls and got in another toxic relationship for 8 months. She turned out to be bi-polar and I'd have to wrestle her off my 23rd floor balcony as she was threatening to jump over.

After College (work life)

-Got a job at another call center being a tech with exceptional stats and performance.
-Eventually got a new manager who I got at odds with. He 'wrote me up' and gave me 'talkings to'. I then complained to HR about him and his unprofessionalism and bullying..
-Had my first 'big panic attack' at work and ambulance was called infront of everyone.
-Quit the job to move to another call center for tech support shortly after.
-New call center things were great. Great boss.
-Got a new boss after him who was known for years to be a problem/bully manager. He tried to bully me and I spoke back to him and threatened to report him. He wrote me up.
-Legitimate layoffs happened and despite my metrics being the best in my team, I got laid off.
-Met my best friend around this time. Fairly 1 sided relationship towards him of course. We were best friends for about 5 years. Later, got at odds with him and then I stopped talking to him over something trivial. He bothered me the whole time and eventually I had enough).
-Got into partying hard.
-Dated a lot of girls.
-Got into another toxic relationship for a year.
-Started to drink at home for the first time.
-Dated toxic girls.
-Met a girl online and moved to Toronto almost on impulse.
-Turned out to be a roller-coaster, insane, toxic relationship that only lasted a few months and almost ended with police and handcuffs. Lots of legal threats and police threats.
-After her, I met my normal, NT, non-neurotic wife who I'd later marry. (she is my current and only wife that I have been with 6 years happily married).
-Got a job at Microsoft and got in disputes right away with a co-worker and created drama with team mates. Although it was deserved, it wasn't appropriate. I was 28 at this time.
-Somehow lasted there 2.5 years. Got at odds several times with many co-workers and managers in the US and India but still was liked locally overall.
-Took another job at a smaller company, boss was great, got laid off though in 6 months though. I thought I did well, but looking back the boss saw me chit chatting a lot.
-On my unemployment, I started to renovate the house and began drinking much more heavily. A micky of vodka with crystal light starting at 3pm every day.
-Eventually got another job and my drinking went back down to a few beers a night.
-Got at odds with my micromanaging boss. My first 'make work' boss. He was a horrible manager. I got 'spoken to' often over the 2 years I was there.
-Company went bankrupt and I was let go. Another company started and many old employees were called back to work, I never got called.
-My wife ended up needing a surgery, a friend of mine got a blood clot, and I noticed that I started getting shaky and dizzy. Also chest pains. I thought it was a blood clot.
-Went to ER twice. Everything checked out fine. Was told I had 'panic attacks' and was prescribed 10mg of Citalopram (mild SSRI).
-Battled panic attacks, agoraphobia, and health anxiety for about 6 months and slowly got better. That was an awful time in my life.
-Got a job with a horrible manager, everyone knew he was bad, but I got 'spoken to' and spoke back to him which his ego didn't like. I was gone in 6 weeks and trained my replacement. I couldn't wait to leave. It was my first time wanting to leave because was worried about panic attacks and anxiety.
-Spent more time off and slowely got better with anxiety.
-6 months later got a job at another company. Spent 4 months later and again, got cursed with a horrible, horrible, manager. This time I wanted to physically harm him (trust me.. he went into my work at a MIDNIGHT shift and there he was in the empty parking lot waiting for me).
-I resigned this job after 5 months and my anxiety is now gone.
-When I resigned I sent out a bunch of emails to various senior directors etc with complaints about that boss and burned my bridges.
-Since then, I've been almost 'afraid' to get another job and feel I've been 'pushed out' of my career.
-Took motorcycle training. Failed the course and blamed their old bikes. Got in a shouting match with staff. Had to re-try test at another location and passed.

Today

-Gained 60lbs since moving to Toronto. Impulse eating and dining out.
-I've lost all motivation for finding a career.
-I've performed poorly with my bosses and cannot hold employment.
-I've taken all the online ADHD tests with scores saying I definitely have ADHD.

These are may failures. While there are lots of successes (like the fact I never abused drugs, never got into serious debt, never cheated, graduated from school) there's too many failures that are causing me to under achieve at this stage in my life.

Comments

That sounds just like my life, and I spent over 10 years blaming anyone and everyone until one day, I woke up and found that my friends whom had tried numerous times to help me had drifted apart because I kept screaming at them to "go away" and that I was over 315 pounds (before I stopped keeping track).

That was when I told myself that I didn't want to live like that. So I sat long and hard to think about what to do to fix it - treated it as if I was back doing phone tech support troubleshooting an issue. I had to change my thinking from I have a problem, and there's nothing that I can do to I have a problem, so let's see what I can do.

That was 4 years ago.

The first thing I did was look into a different doctor because the one I currently had wasn't helping me out in the way that I needed. When I found someone else, I got another diagnosis which turned out to be correct and I got the treatment that I really needed.

It took me almost a year and a half to adjust and recover before I even started thinking about my next step which was that I wanted to get a job, a career. So I looked into getting my Fin Aid back (and found an interesting solution about paying off a previous balance from another school that prevented me from enrolling into anything)

It was all trial and error... many times I have had to "retreat, regroup, and retry" until I got some kind of progress.

Finally I'm back in school again and I spent almost 3 to 4 times longer to study for stuff and I communicated regularly with my teachers (in the form of emails written as if they were business memos as if I was in the work place and they were my supervisors), like this example when I had to request for an extension for a due date for an extensive writing assignment that I knew that I wasn't going to get done on time so I sent this a couple days before the due date saying that,

"... I truly hope that arrangements can be made and if it is not possible, then I would like to know what the grade penalty will be for my assignment. I prefer to take the time to finish assignments that are meaningful and high quality rather than throwing something together and pray that you don't notice. All it will do is waste your time and insult your intelligence, not to mention cheat myself out of learning something and most likely sabotage my grade. ..."(copy and paste from the actual email)

I actually got a thank you letter for being considerate and respectful that I was granted a 1-week extension for that assignment.

Then, over time... people kept saying on how much my attitude changed for the better and that I was losing a lot of weight. So I checked and discovered that I had dropped down to 150. (I didn't diet, I'm going to have to give credit to having the correct diagnosis and medical treatment)

I am far from finished and I again hit another snag with my Fin Aid but after some thought (and crying) I managed to put together something worth presenting as an appeal with documentation and I'm pretty sure that I'll get approved but it will take some time, so we'll see how that goes.

...............

But, I'm not going to pull the brainless mantra of "IF I CAN DO IT, SO CAN YOU!" b.s. when in reality it's all about what you WANT to do. Otherwise, everything else will mean nothing.

Try not to be so hard on yourself,the one shining thing out of your life is that you have a loving partner,more precious that than money and wealth.
You now know you need to seek help for ADHD This week itoo have been put on 10mg of Citrolopram for my anxieties.
I wish you well and try and dwell more on positives than failures Luv JUles

look man we ALL have failures in our life that's why we're here. but please, stop focusing so obsessively on them!! you're here to start on the path to getting better. don't let what's brought you down in the past define your future!

Some people with ADHD were born luckier than you and their genetics and environment gave them the behaviour therapy that allows them to be more successful than you.

Bottom line is that just like NT's some ADDers are luckier than others. You have been unlucky but we all have ADHD now you need to somehow find the ability to get diagnosed.

Print out all these comments and hand them to a psychiatrist that specializes in ADHD. You will have no problem getting diagnosed and treated. Its not going to magically solve your problems as you hope but it will help.